Security

What to Expect at Cisco Live! 2025

Unified security, AI-ready networks and full-stack visibility are on the agenda at this year’s event.

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Lily is a Senior Editor at BizTech Magazine. She follows tech trends, thought leadership and data analytics.

The countdown for Cisco Live 2025 begins as thousands of IT leaders across the globe descend on San Diego. Cisco Live, hosted June 8-12, is one of the biggest tech events of the year and promises to offer attendees an integrated approach to security, from modern networking to AI implementations.

But integrating AI into business processes comes with security challenges. In response, Cisco plans to offer “a unified approach to artificial intelligence across their products,” in terms of functionality and architecture, says Jesse Nixon, senior manager of Cisco sales, solutions and partner management at CDW. “That’s going to be front and center.”

Experts will also share how to companies can bolster their current security strategies and reduce vulnerabilities.

“The weakest link of any company's security strategy is their end users,” Nixon says. As users work across hybrid environments, the endpoints grow. Cisco has “integrated the software-defined WAN and firewall portfolio so there’s protection built in. They’re really pulling all those entry points of an IT system together to allow for uninterrupted secure experiences,” he adds.

Cisco Live will also present innovations around endpoint and cloud computing (including SASE and VPN as a Service) to protect users wherever they work. Plus, real-life enterprise use cases. Here are four key themes to watch:

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1. AI-Ready Infrastructure Built for Outcomes

AI isn't just about experimentation, it's about solving real problems. With AI-ready infrastructure, such as Cisco Nexus Hyperfabric and NVIDIA AI pods, businesses can run high-performance workloads for everything from fraud detection to real-time customer analytics.

Once AI tools are embedded directly into infrastructure, organizations can take advantage without having to overhaul their entire IT stack. This will help a majority of businesses, as only 32% feel they have “high readiness from a data perspective to adapt, deploy, and fully leverage, AI technologies,” according to Cisco’s AI Readiness Index.

2. Security Embedded at Every Layer

“You can't talk about AI without talking about how it's secured. You can't talk about cloud without talking about how it's secured,” says Nixon. “That is a central piece of this year’s conference, how Cisco and partners like CDW are threading security into every aspect of the business.”

Cisco experts Scott Herpolsheimer, vice president for people partners, and Sweetie Browne, partner sales business development manager, along with CDW’s Stephanie Hagopian, vice president of security solutions, will share how to secure AI tools.

We'll be able to show how we bring data in from all of these different points and correlate them so enterprises can make decisions and set policy based on what is going on, versus reacting to an issue downstream after a breach.”

Jesse Nixon senior manager Cisco sales, solutions and partner management, CDW

3. Smarter Networks With Software-Defined Access and Wi-Fi 7

Since Meraki and Catalyst merged into a unified switching platform, software-defined access policies now span wired and wireless connections. CDW’s Puneet Duggal, Cisco practice lead and principal solution architect, and Cisco’s Kanu Gupta, product manager, will consider how SD-WAN and Wi-Fi 7 are optimizing modern enterprise networking, with selected case studies from sports venues and large enterprises. They will also discuss why the proliferation of connected devices makes zero-trust network access policies essential.

EXPLORE: A few important security considerations as IT leaders implement AI.

4. Full-Stack Observability to Drive Action

IT leaders “report an annual return on observability solutions that’s 2.67x their spend,” according to a Splunk report. But to make sure their efforts really work as intended, teams must first implement data integration, real-time monitoring and predictive analytics.

“If businesses don’t do any of this, this is really going to impact their service greatly. I would say it really is an inhibitor for them to grow,” CDW’s Davandra Panchal, observability enterprise architect and principal consultant, told BizTech magazine.

At Cisco Live, Wintrust Bank will showcase how using tools like Cisco's application centric infrastructure (ACI) and microsegmentation, plus platforms like Splunk, which includes Splunk AppDynamics under its observability portfolio, and ThousandEyes helped their teams gain visibility into performance, threats and application health in real time.

“Through these examples we'll be able to show how we bring data in from all of these different points and correlate them so enterprises can make decisions and set policy based on what is going on, versus reacting to an issue downstream after a breach,” Nixon says.

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